


Lost

by squintly



Series: Iteration [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Anal Sex, GWD!Barton, M/M, References to Suicide, timeloop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-17
Updated: 2013-07-17
Packaged: 2017-12-20 12:23:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/887247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squintly/pseuds/squintly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After losing the most valuable thing in his life, Loki tries to set things right and makes them considerably worse instead. </p><p>Part of the Iteration series, occurring after Hush and before Iteration. While this fic is stand-alone, reading Hush and Beginnings are both recommended.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost

He never saw it coming.

He was distracted. Barton kept shooting him looks. He’d made a promise, the night before, to strip Loki down and shatter him and then build him back up, piece by quivering, moaning piece. If kingship had been what Loki had always assumed it would be, before he held a crown of his own, he never would have made it to the throne room at all—he would have spent the day on his knees, blindfolded and bruised and deliriously happy. But there were decisions to be made, rulings to give, boons to grant. Heavy was the head. 

The latest supplicant came into the echoing room with head bowed, like all the others. Loki noticed the bulk under his heavy jacket, but it was the middle of January, and even a decade and a half after the fires had stopped burning the smoke of the invasion still lingered. _Everyone_ was cold, even him.

“State your business,” Barton said for the umpteenth time that day, sounding as bored as Loki felt.

“To ask for forgiveness,” the man replied. Loki sighed. Yet another adulterer or thief or murderer come for absolution. He kept hoping that one of these days the devout would figure out that their new god was utterly indifferent about the state of their souls, but that day seemed long in coming.

“What is your sin?” Loki asked him absently, looking at Barton’s broad back and thinking about clawing his fingers down it, or not—Barton probably wouldn’t let him, and that would be so much _better_.

“Regicide.”

By the time the word managed to fight its way through the fantasy to Loki’s brain, it was too late.

The shockwave cracked his head against the back of his throne and crushed the air out of his chest. He couldn’t hear, he couldn’t see, ears ringing and brilliant black spots dancing before his eyes. Something was on his face, his hands, little speckles of warm, stinging rain. When his breath came back he gagged on the scent of gunpowder and blood. 

“Barton!” he shouted, muted and dull under the persistent whine as he stumbled to his feet.

He heard a voice, several, but couldn’t make them out as anything other than a loud drone. His foot slipped on the polished green marble. He looked down. Through the fading spots he made out coins, glittering like sunlight on water in a pool of viscera and blood.

He reached out to pick one up. Stopped. 

There was a quarter embedded in his hand, just between the first and second knuckles. It didn’t even hurt. Not until he flexed his fingers and saw bone.

“Barton!” he called again. 

Someone grabbed his shoulder, one of the other guards, a shiny living statue in green and gold. He said something, something about getting out, getting him help. He didn’t care.

“Where’s Barton?” he asked, shaking off the man’s presumptuous guiding grip.

“Sire—“

“Where is he?” Loki snapped. “Barton!”

The spots were fading. His throne room was a debacle. The explosion had been small, but messy, splattering the would-be assassin all over the gilded pillars and the emerald banners hung in between. The coins were everywhere, sparkling bright spots in the slowly spreading sea. 

“Barton—“ he began. And then he saw him.

He’d fallen where he stood, at the bottom of the steps leading up to the throne. He wasn’t moving.

“Barton!” Loki shouted, the guard grabbing him again, Loki shaking him off, hurrying down the steps and slipping in the blood as he reached the bottom, his hip screaming as it hit the sharp edge of the last stair and his injured hand flashing painfully as he caught himself with it and none of that mattered.

Barton was fine. Barton was _fine_. The blood splattering him from head to toe wasn’t his, and the glints of metal poking through his jacket were just flesh wounds, and he was just _fine_.

“Barton,” Loki said, gasping, taking Barton’s chin in his head, lifting his head up.

There was a dark bloody line in his forehead. His eyes were open.

“Barton,” Loki said again, grabbing his shoulder, shaking him. He didn’t even blink. “ _Barton_.”

“Sire,” the guard said again, coming down to kneel by his side. “We need to get you out of here.”

The guard grabbed his arm. Tried to pull him up. Tried to pull him _away_. Loki drew the pistol from its home at Barton’s side and shot him in the chest.

“Barton, don’t play,” he said over the shouting. “ _Barton_.”

Barton didn’t respond.

Barton wasn’t fine.

Loki didn’t know what to do.

He’d seen Barton die a thousand times. Killed him a thousand more. It had never bothered him before. 

But it had never been _this_ Barton before. It had never been _his_ Barton. _His_ Barton wasn’t supposed to die. They’d made sure of that, fifteen years ago, when Barton had broken the cycle and stopped the bomb from falling and given Loki a life. _This_ life. With _him_.

This was supposed to be the end of death.

He couldn’t breathe. Loki couldn’t breathe. He ran his hands over Barton’s face, through the blood, smearing it across his broad nose, his flat cheeks, into the prickle of his thin brows. Loki’s fingers tingled, totally numb. Barton’s skin was warm, warm, cool compared to how he usually felt under Loki’s hands but they weren’t making love, that was to be expected. It didn’t mean anything.

“Barton,” he said again. His voice cracked and caught in his throat and he didn’t know why until he felt the heat spill out of his eyes and down his cheeks. “Barton.”

But Barton wasn’t there.

But he could be.

Loki just had to start over. 

Grabbing Barton’s gun again, he pressed it to the bottom of his chin and pulled the trigger.

And the blood went away. And the pain went away. The tears vanished and suddenly he was kneeling on glass and metal instead of slick marble, and the staff was under his hand, and blue flames flickered over him, comforting and electric against his skin.

And he opened his eyes. And Barton was there, whole, and complete, looking at him the way he always did in the beginning, fear and awe and stubborn courage. 

Loki’s heart throbbed. 

“Sir, please put down the spear,” Fury said, as massively, laughably unimportant as he had always been.

“Barton,” Loki said as he rose, voice flooded with relief, grinning so wide his face hurt. 

But Barton didn’t smile back, that mischievous one-sided smile Loki had come to adore. His expression crystalized into staunch professionalism, hard as ice, and his hand dropped to his sidearm. 

“How do you know my name?” he asked, and his voice was harsh and none of this was right.

“I know you,” Loki replied, walking down the ramp, ignoring the dozen guns trained at his heart, the cold rubbery feeling in his stomach. “And you know me.”

Barton and Fury glanced at one another. Loki’s heartbeat felt tiny and small and cold, a dying butterfly fluttering in his chest. Because this wasn’t _his_ Barton. But he could be. But he _would_ be. All he had to do was make him remember, because he _always_ remembered, something _always_ came through. And they would stand and watch the world burn all over again and Barton would pin him to the floor and fuck him like it was the very first time and things would be just as they were, _better_ , now that Loki knew what would happen once the bomb didn’t fall. It would all be the same. Barton couldn’t die, any more than Loki could.

“No, I really don’t,” Barton said. 

“Of course you do,” Loki insisted. “You don’t remember now, but you will.”

“Stop right there,” Fury ordered as Loki took his first step off the ramp and onto the concrete floor. “Who the hell are you?”

“Come to me,” Loki said, dismissing Fury completely and opening his arms to Barton. 

“I don’t think so,” Barton replied, taking a step backwards.

“No, no, it’s alright,” Loki assured him, stepping forward. “I won’t hurt you. I would never hurt you.”

Fury drew his gun and levelled it at Loki’s head.

“I told you to _stay put_ ”

Loki looked at him. The man should _not_ have gotten his attention.

He was out of practice. Six years without being in a battle, fifteen without being in this one. And things were different, from a different beginning. He killed Fury first as always, blowing a charred bloody hole in his chest, but the toy soldier second from the left fired first instead of the third on the right and clipped Loki in the shoulder as he dropped into a roll. Loki shot one of them as he rose, slashed another while he turned, opening his chest all the way down through the bone. Dodged a bullet that came as it always did from the soldier closest to Fury, then another from Barton, that one drawing a sharp line down the side of his neck.

The others fell as they should. And then only Barton was left.

Loki hit him in the wrist with the blunt edge of his staff, sending his gun skittering across the floor to disappear into the growing mess of gore. Barton skittered backwards, wincing and grabbing his wrist, until his back hit the wall. 

Loki’s heart jumped into his throat, beating so, so fast, from the fight, from fear, from Barton, being so, so close to him, so close to undoing everything, starting over, as if there had never been an explosion or a coin or blood dripping down into Barton’s open eyes. 

“Forgive me,” he gasped, rushing forward. “Did I—“

Barton punched him. Cartilage snapped. Nausea broiled hot and sour in his stomach as the pain washed over him.

Before the wave abated, Barton was scrambling for a weapon. Loki lashed out on instinct, scythe side of the scepter cutting a deep gouge into Barton’s calf and sending him screaming to the floor. The staff was out of his hand and halfway across the room before he hit. 

“Barton,” he said, skittering to the man’s side for the second time in, subjectively speaking, as many minutes. “Are you alright?”

“Fuck you,” Barton spat, pushing back away from him. 

Loki only meant to subdue him. To hold him down, keep him from hurting himself, making Loki hurt him. Loki grabbed his ankle first, pulled Barton towards him, leaning hard on Barton’s legs to keep him from kicking. Barton grabbed a handful of Loki’s hair and _tore_ , hot angry pain, so Loki snagged his wrist, and then the other, and then he was straddling Barton and Barton was struggling beneath him, fighting and cursing and bucking up into him, that strong hard body he knew so well. And it felt so _good_. And it was _right_. They’d done this, a dozen times, a hundred, pinned one another to the nearest flat surface and been pinned and fucked and been fucked and it was such a _fucking relief_ to feel Barton’s heart beating and hear him breathing and taste him, through the blood, feel Barton’s lips beneath his. And when Barton bit him hard enough to break the skin—

Loki had been looking forward to this all day. 

Blood and pain. That’s what they were. That’s what they _did_. He tore Barton’s shirt away, Barton’s hands crushing bruises into his arms, clawing at him through the leather. The crook of Barton’s shoulder tasted of sweat and fear, something Loki hadn’t tasted in _so long_ , not in years. His body was warm, and hard, and _alive_ , chest heaving and pulse racing beneath Loki’s fingers. 

“Barton,” Loki moaned into his skin.

“Get the _fuck_ off of me,” Barton hissed in return.

He stopped. Rested his forehead against Barton’s chest, feeling his chest rise and fall. Barton kept tearing at him, trying to push him off, but even diminished as he was in this simulacrum Loki was still stronger, always the stronger. 

“Remember,” he murmured, running his hand down Barton’s side to the waist of his pants. “ _Remember_.”

“Don’t you fucking touch me,” Barton replied, raspy, tremulous, terrified and if Loki knew him as well as Loki did, a little unsure.

Loki shushed him, finding his belt and pulling the tab free. 

“It’s alright. It will come.”

Barton’s cock was small, limp in his hand, something Loki wasn’t used to. Something Loki sort of _liked_ , feeling him just begin to harden, to swell, to heat. He closed his eyes, breathed into Barton’s chest. The noise Barton made—tiny and trembling and so close to a moan—sent a shiver down his back.

“See?” Loki purred. “Your body remembers.”

“Please,” Barton said. “Don’t. _Please_.”

He’d never heard Barton beg before. 

He kind of liked _that_ , too.

“It’ll come back,” Loki kissed into Barton’s collarbone. “I promise.”

Everything Barton liked, Loki did. He ran his fingernails up the underside of his stiffening cock, along the pulsing line of the vein. Squeezed hard on the upstroke, feather-light going down. Swept the pad of his thumb over the head of his cock, dry but smooth, soft. Nipped at the nook of his shoulder, just hard enough to make Barton groan. And Barton pushed at him and Barton squirmed but with every passing second he squirmed a little less, pushed a little softer. 

It felt like the first time all over again, only the way Loki had imagined it from the start. Barton beneath him, Barton hard and writhing and cursing his name with every hushed shivering breath. When he let the illusion of clothing fall and sat straddling Barton in all his naked glory, Barton froze, just as he had before. Loki felt the hot rush of blood coming up through the veins in his neck, throbbing under his tongue. 

He hadn’t prepared himself in years. Barton always did it for him, _loved_ doing it, loved driving Loki crazy with every twitch and curl of his fingers. The intrusion of his own was dull in comparison, a simple stretch and slide courtesy of some magicked oil, but he couldn’t ask Barton to do it. Couldn’t _trust_ him to, not yet, not when his nails were still digging into Loki’s shoulders hard enough to break the skin and send thin trickles of heat down his back. Not that Loki minded—Barton had done far worse to him in the name of pleasure. It’s just that Barton didn’t _mean_ it like that, not yet. He was still afraid, still tense, quivering under Loki like a leaf. Like a stranger. 

And he was. And wasn’t. When Loki slid down onto him, taking him in all at once, it felt the same, the same glorious burn. But Barton didn’t react the same. He didn’t moan, he _whimpered_ , grip tightening and turning crescents into gouges. Loki shuddered, made it worse, made it _better_ , muscles contracting around Barton’s cock. 

“Barton,” he groaned, beginning to rock. 

The other man whimpered again. He turned his face away, exposing his neck to Loki’s tongue, his teeth. It was on purpose, it had to be. Barton was _remembering_. And even if Barton didn’t rock back into him, just lay there, well—

Loki _liked_ it. _Loved_ it. Barton had never surrendered to him so completely. 

He picked up the pace, panting against Barton’s skin. This was right, so right, so _good_. And it didn’t matter. None of what had happened mattered. They could just start over, _were_ starting over, better than before, Barton hard and thick and hot inside him. He couldn’t breathe again but this time it wasn’t panic. It was pleasure, _ecstasy_ , as he maneuvered just _so_ , sparks shooting through him with every rise and fall of his hips. 

“Barton,” he murmured again, and this time Barton replied, a quiet “Fuck,” that felt even better than the throb of Barton’s cock inside. 

“Yes,” he gasped, rolling his hips harder, faster. “Barton, _yes_.”

“Fuck,” Barton said again, _moaned_ , voice crackling. “ _Fuck_.”

And Barton’s hips were suddenly moving, jerking up against him, into him, and it was Loki’s turn to curse. Barton’s rhythm was erratic, desperate, restrained and cut loose all at the same time and Loki couldn’t take it. The pressure was building too much, too fast. And it was _Barton_ , _his_ Barton, all the little eccentricities, the quick high-pitched panting as he got close, thighs tensing as his toes curled, the shudders coursing through him and rippling up through Loki. Nothing had happened. Nothing was wrong. 

Barton came. 

He felt it, felt the flood inside him, hot, spreading through him as Barton’s hips pumped harder than ever, the man moaning, clawing at his back and this time Loki knew it was _right_. It was all right, all of it, every last thing. 

Except as Barton came down from it, he sobbed.

Barton had never done that. Sometimes he laughed. Sometimes he moaned. Most of the time he was too spent to do anything at all other than lie there, with Loki, draped over each other and around each other until morning came and they woke up sticky. 

For the first time, Loki looked up at Barton’s face. 

The man was crying.

Loki had never seen Barton cry.

“Barton?” he asked, slowing his own rocking to a stop, his own heavy arousal suddenly losing all importance. 

“Get off,” the man sobbed. “Please, just get off.”

It didn’t make sense. Why would—why would Barton say that, if he remembered? And he _did_ remember, he had to, he _had_ to. 

Loki shifted off Barton’s wilting cock and the man took a deep shuddering breath, turning his flushed face away. Not pleasure-flushed—tear-flushed. Shame-flushed. 

“Barton—“

“Fuck off!” Barton cried, shoving him away again, as hard as he could. 

“But—“

“Fuck off!” he shouted again, beating against Loki’s chest. “Fuck off, fuck off, fuck off!”

Loki sat up. Slipped off him. Barton twisted away immediately, curling into a sobbing ball. 

“You remember,” Loki said. “You have to.”

Barton said nothing.

Nothing.

No. 

No, no, no. This wasn’t how it was. This couldn’t be how it was.

“Remember me,” Loki demanded. “Remember me!”

Barton didn’t respond. His shoulders quivered, too tense to shake. 

“Perhaps it just takes time,” Loki said, voice just as unsteady. “If we just give it time—“

“I do,” Barton said.

Loki’s chest imploded. He had been falling and now he was flying, suspended in that weightless moment where his stomach turned and his throat constricted ready for a scream, and he _knew_ he was about to start falling again, Barton’s tone was all wrong, but _maybe_. _Please_.

“I remember you,” Barton continued, swallowing around his sobs. “I remember.”

He turned. Looked over his shoulder. Tears streaked his face and his eyes burned, the wrong colour.

“And I _fucking hate you_.”

And Loki fell.

He—

There was nothing. There was nothing to think. Nothing to say. Nothing to feel. It was all the wrong thing.

He’d forgotten. About the tesseract, about everything. He’d never stopped to think.

And if it was true, then—

But if it wasn’t—

Loki didn’t know what to do.

Barton turned away again. His legs curled up closer to his chest, hands clamping in his hair as he pressed his face into his forearms. Shudders rippled through him, one after the other.

Loki wanted to touch him. Smooth his hand down Barton’s back, his hair, tell him everything was going to be alright. Loki would take care of him, the way Barton had taken care of Loki for all these years. 

But Barton hadn’t had any choice. He’d said he did, had vowed it, but Loki knew better than most that what you said wasn’t always what you meant. And that what you meant wasn’t always what you felt.

“I’m sorry,” he said. The words felt hollow and utterly, hilariously inadequate. 

Barton didn’t respond. Of course he didn’t respond. 

And it hit him. It finally hit him.

His Barton was gone. 

He couldn’t bring him back. He couldn’t recreate him.

It would never be the Barton that broke the cycle of death and saved his life. It would never be the Barton that had stood by his side and helped him conquer the world for the very first time, helped him survive the riots and the rebellions and turned him into a king. 

It would never be the Barton that he—as much as he hated the word—loved.

It would always be someone else.

He’d hit the ground. Every bone in his body was broken. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t swallow. Couldn’t even blink away the tears.

It would never be the same. It would never be right.

It would never be alright again.

Above them, the coalescing energy began to crackle. He’d forgotten about it. They had a minute, at most, before it exploded inwards and brought the whole facility down on their heads. It would be a slow death. Loki had experienced it once, and then never, ever again.

“We can’t get out,” he said. His voice didn’t sound like him.

Barton didn’t say anything. His shudders stilled, a little. He was listening.

“I’ll kill you before it happens,” Loki vowed. “You shan’t suffer.”

“Do it,” Barton muttered into his arms. “Now.”

Loki closed his eyes. 

He stood up. Stepped over Barton, to the pile of cooling bodies. Nudged a soldier over with his foot and found Barton’s gun. 

Barton was watching him when he turned back, through the gap between his wrists. Loki was still naked, still half hard but fading fast. Barton’s seed dripped down the inside of his thighs. Loki shivered and his clothes returned, simple and drab.

“Thanks,” Barton murmured as Loki knelt before him.

Loki’s heart jolted in his chest. Again he closed his eyes.

“No,” he said.

Barton didn’t reply.

The first time Loki had killed Thor, he hadn’t hesitated. He’d been so angry. So afraid. The second time, he’d failed. He couldn’t do it. He’d put a knife to his brother’s throat and then dropped it, just because Thor asked him to. 

He was so good at destroying things. But in the end, he couldn’t do it. He could never do it. Not by himself.

He pressed the gun to the side of Barton’s head. Barton looked at him, kept looking, expectant. _Waiting_.

It wasn’t a coin. It was a bullet. And both were his fault.

Loki pulled the trigger.

The echo faded. The gun hung loosely from his fingers. Blood lapped against his knees.

He could feel the electricity prickling on the back of his neck. Right about now was when he always shot himself, if he couldn’t find a way out. The alternative was too terrible to contemplate. To be trapped, crushed, unable to move, unable to breathe, waiting to die.

Seconds ticked by. He ran his thumb over the hammer. The metal was smooth and cool, like pure water. 

He let the gun drop. The clatter boomed.

There was nothing left.


End file.
